What follows is nothing short of a rant against a company whose products and support I generally love. As you know, I have been an ardent fan and supporter of Garmin and their incredible line of GPS products. In fact over the years I have owned no fewer than eight different Garmin GPS units that I have used for hiking, Geocaching, sailing, flying and cycling. I have raved about each and every one of the Garmin units I have owned and have, as a result, probably helped sell dozens (literally) to friends and family, as well as perhaps hundreds or maybe thousands to you, my valued listeners. Please keep this in mind as you read the rant that follows because it is nothing short of the musings of a customer and fan who been a supporter and apologist for the company, but who now has been let down one too many times and just can’t take it anymore.

With a small amount of fanfare, Garmin announced on Friday that their Mac OSX version of Training Center was finally available for users of its Forerunner and Edge fitness GPS units (the ones used by cyclists and runners). Being an avid fan of Garmin’s Edge GPS as well as the geek that you all know me to be, as soon as I arrived home from my family vacation I jumped onto Garmin’s web site, hoping to download and install this wondrous new software. So what did I find there? . . . .

Absolutely nothing.

Confused, I re-read Garmin’s December 29th press release. Buried deep within the superlatives and P.R. mumbo-jumbo, I finally found this little tidbit of information:

“Garmin will distribute complimentary Mac compatible Garmin Training Center software CDs at Macworld, January 8-12, 2007. Those unable to attend Macworld will be able to download the Mac compatible software for free in late January 2007”

Huh?

How can you say that the software is “Now Available” (the headline straight from Garmin’s press release) and in the same breath tell us that we have to wait until next week to get the CD (if we are lucky enough to attend MacWorld) or late January 2007 for the download? Does it really take a month for Garmin’s Mac team to figure out how to use FTP software to get the file up on their web site? Or is this really just another load of marketing double-talk from Garmin? Because it sure sounds that way to me.

Now perhaps you think I’m over-reacting. If so, then perhaps you don’t remember the promises that Garmin has made over the past 12 months and how we have been let down time and time again. So for a little history, read on.

Back in January of 2006, Garmin made a big splash at MacWorld when they finally committed, after years of refusal, to supporting the Mac platform. At that time, they promised to “immediately begin to make [their] line of GPS and mobile electronics devices compatible with Mac OS X.” They went on to say that this would begin with an OS X version of Training Center (the software for the Forerunner and Edge products) that would be available in Spring 2006, and that “by the end of 2006, Garmin intends to have made all its popular hardware and software applications Mac OS X compatible” including the ability to upload maps to MapSource-compatible units.

In the Spring, MotionBased (Garmin’s performance tracking web site/application) released the MotionBased Web Agent for Mac. While this announcement was widely hailed as a step forward for Garmin’s Mac customers, it was nowhere near what had been promised. As cool as MotionBased is, even this release has its faults. Consider for a moment that this product is still in beta, only supports the Safari web browser, and still does not support several of the cooler features of MotionBased that our Windows-brethren have come to know and love.

So Spring came and went without a peep from Garmin about Training Center. In fact I and several of The FredCast listeners reported having conversations with Garmin technicians who admitted to delays in the Mac software and problems in completing the development. This was finally confirmed in a June 27 press release in which Garmin extended the release date for Training Center to a nebulous “by the end of 2006” (hence the timing of Friday’s press release?). They went on to say that, “also at that time (i.e. by the end of 2006), we will announce the expected completion date for Garmin’s other hardware and software applications [for Mac].”

So Garmin now CLAIMS that their Training Center software is Mac-compatible, but as far as I can tell nobody has actually seen or used it outside of the Garmin organization. They can claim that they kept their promise of having the software by the end of 2006, but they aren’t actually going to release it for up to a month and they failed to tell us when the rest of their hardware and software will be Mac-compatible as they promised back in June.

Finally, since we’ve now learned that we need to parse Garmin’s press releases as if they were given by politicians seeking office, I’ll leave you with something else to ponder. This lastest press release from Garmin refers in several places to the new software’s comatibility with OS X 10.4 “Tiger.” I wonder whether this is Garmin’s clever way of saying that the software won’t be compatible with the forthcoming OS X 10.5 “Leopard?” Furthermore, none of the aforementioned press releases say anything about whether or not this software will be a so-called Universal Binary, allowing it to run on either PowerPC or Intel-based Macs. It would seem logical that the software should be Universal, but since we’re dealing with Garmin here, only time will tell.

And considering their track record lately, I suspect we’ll need lots of time.